Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells

Bee Disgusted?

It's quite amazing what twists and turns you can take when wandering down the avenues of history. There was I reading about what could've been the very first photograph of Tunbridge Wells, which was taken by the Reverend John Cumming in 1851, when I discovered that he was quite the writer and beekeeper.

The Reverend John Cumming spent hard-earned time away from his London parishoners at Kentish Cottage on the Common where he relaxed by keeping bees for honey. The Reverend's beekeeping made him quite well known in apicultural circles – under the pseudonym "A Bee-Master" he wrote some wonderful letters to The Times newspaper about the subject. In fact the letters produced such a flood of responses and interest that he was prompted by a publisher to write a book to share his knowledge on the types of hives on the market, bee welfare and his remedy for stings. Following publication the Reverend showed his appreciation to The Times for promoting his hobby by sending them a jar of Tunbridge Wells honey.

He cleverly transferred his religious beliefs into his beekeeping by treating the hives like miniature churches and by opposing the then common method of killling the bees for their honey, choosing instead to care for the bees as they cared for him by providing him with honey. He'd leave the bees enough honey for their requirements over the winter and take only what was surplus. This honey, he said, could even be sold to pay for the rent on your home. I wonder if that would work today in the current climate?

Can we say that the Reverend was the original Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells? After all, his letters predate the 1950's story of Disgusted by almost 100 years, he did hide behind an alias and he did have a bee in his bonnet (pun intended). Make your own mind up by reading some of the Reverend's letters below in their original 1864 format:

Click here to download the document (2.7MB)

Anyway, I guess you are wondering what the first photograph was? It was a calotype negative of The Pantiles, and here it is.

I'd love to know what you think, why not leave me a comment below.

Clouds over Trinity Church

After my wife bought me a book to learn all about clouds I have found myself looking skyward more and more.
To waste a pleasant afternoon in the sun I decided to photograph the clouds moving over Tunbridge Wells in a time-lapse, so I found myself a quite vantage point near Trinity Church and pointed my camera up to the heavens.
Over a period of three hours I photographed the same scene once every 10 seconds and then combined them into this video. Enjoy!

Vic Reeves' Bizarre Birding

Need something amazing to do this weekend? You can't go far wrong with a visit to our local Art Gallery where Vic Reeves’ exhibition, ‘The Natural History of Kent and Sussex – Through My Binoculars’, is now showing.

If you're a birder like my wife and I then it makes for fascinating viewing, and listening too, with the bizarre contents of Vic's imagination played out in hilarious paints on the walls and also in surreal taxidermic displays of birds and insects. It certainly does make one feel very artistically inspired.

You may wonder how and why a famous television comedian would arrive in Tunbridge Wells to display art, well Vic is a Kent resident and a huge fan of museums, especially ours it would seem so it was only fitting that he be made a temporary curator to set up his very first museum exhibition.

The exhibition runs until the end of August and you can pick up some great souvenirs, there is also a chance to purchase one-off artistic proofs of Vic's work, the bird images being the most tempting. But they are actually all worthy of display on the walls and all brilliant.

This is an event not to be missed and you must, must, must pay the gallery a visit this weekend to see it. In Vic's own words: "You must come and see it, you will be astonished".

If you have been to the exhibition then let me know what you thought by leaving a comment below, you can also join Vic's Facebook Group by clicking here. There are lots of wonderful pictures on there and even some photographs of the artwork if you can't manage to get to the gallery yourself.
There is also a link to an audio interview with Vic at the museum here.

I really hope this sets a precedent for future displays at our gallery, perhaps Bob Mortimer might like his own display next?

For a post to coincide with Vic's brilliant exhibition I thought it would be a nice idea to get people discovering birds and maybe even being inspired to paint their own bird art just like Vic's.

So here are our top ten places in Tunbridge Wells to see wonderful birds to inspire you:

10. Feeder at the end of York Road - perfect place to sit on a bench and enjoy the myriad of sounds and odd glimpses of passerine paradise.

9. Ducks on Brighton Pond - a strange place that is alongside a busy main road but with its "duck island" is great for a Springtime treat of baby ducklings.

8. Train station - unlikely place to watch the fascinating courtship behaviours of pigeons along the platform and if you walk right to the end you can entertain yourself with sparrows and, if you're lucky, siskins until your train arrives.

7. Calverley Park - wander off the road into the trees and undergrowth to find out where the birds hide from the crowds in Calverley Grounds.

6. Camden Park - the walk from town to Hawkenbury down through Camden Park is always quiet and the mature trees make excellent hiding places for woodpeckers. Just listen for the distinct laughing calls.

5. Woodbury Park Cemetery - a gem of a hideaway from the town centre, this cemetery in a mature wooded valley is a beautiful place to sit and watch goldcrests, coal tits, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and swifts.

4. High Woods Lane - walk along this peaceful lane towards Pembury to enjoy quail, yellowhammers and fieldfares in the farmland, cheeky passerines in the allotments, and if you're very lucky you will see a barn owl feeding over the fields or even roosting in the abandoned barn.

3. Dunorlan Park - a huge range of waterfowl inhabit this great lake but especially keep your eyes open for water rails, mandarins, black swans, treecreepers, herons and kingfishers. See if you can spot all the birds listed in the cafe.

2. The Commons - from kingfishers, jays and herons to your blackcaps and blackbirds, you will never fail to see a lot of birds on the Commons.

1. Trinity Church - watch white doves sitting on the clock tower, listen to the song thrush who sits atop a tree with a song so strident you can probably hear it in Tonbridge, and the best treat of all is watching the starlings meet half-an-hour before sunset to chat about their day before leaving en-masse in one giant swirling ball to roost for the night in the town centre.

Caves meet tunnels

An interesting update to my previous post on Tunnels under Tunbridge Wells is the discovery of a 1941 sketch by E. Owen Jennings, former Principal of Tunbridge Wells School of Art.
The sketch shows some caves carved into the sandstone under the Common which were created for use as air raid shelters. The story goes that they were connected to the tunnels that lead off to the wine vaults, possibly even our smugglers tunnels. Does anyone out there, or anyone you know, have any memories of spending nights in these air raid shelters?